


The Light

by katie_herondale



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, ghostfire, leico - Freeform, valdangelo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:53:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katie_herondale/pseuds/katie_herondale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico's nightmares seemed to only get worse since Tartarus, and they come every night. But one night, they fade during the night. Nico discovers the "light" causing his nightmares to fade, but what will he make of it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! Well, this is my first fanfiction, so I'm sorry if it's bad. Feel free to give me suggestions and tips. They would really help. This story is going to be told in Nico's point of view. The length depends on whether or not people like it, and whether or not I'm inspired to continue it. I hope you enjoy! 
> 
>  
> 
> // Italics are the voices from Tartarus speaking to Nico , and the bold italics are Nico's thoughts during those taunts.//

I could feel it coming before it happened. The nightmares came every night. Sure, demigods all had scarily accurate nightmares, but none of those even begin to compare with mine. These daily nightmares came from my time in Tartarus of course. As if my life hadn't been bad enough, I just had to get sent to the deepest pits of hell, literally. I thought it would all end when I escaped, but that isn't the case. I even doubted my survival towards the end of my fight. In fact, I'm not even sure I was hoping for it at that point. But getting back to the point, these messages from hell came to me every night, forcing me to relive probably the worst experiences of my life. And they came back again tonight. 

* * *

_He'll never love you, he never did. You're hopeless and pathetic. **There is no way I can escape this torture, I'll go crazy before I get out.** What would your mom think about your hopeless love? What about Bianca? Your Father?  **The voices followed him everywhere he went, there was no escape.** You'll never accomplish anything. You only disappoint people. No wonder Bianca left you.  **"STOP YOU'RE LYING," I shouted at them, but even as the words left my lips, I started doubting them. They were right after all.  What had I done? I never helped anyone. I would never be a hero like Percy was. I mean how could I be, I was only a son of Hades. I was treated like I was covered in sewage and then on top of that I had to b-be gay.**_

* * *

Usually the nightmares went on for the rest of the night. And every night I would scream, too weak to fight them off. It's a good thing my walls were extra thick. Maybe the Hephaestus kids built my cabin walls thick for this reason. I wouldn't blame them if they did. I wouldn't want to hear me either if I was them. Oddly though, on this night a few minutes after I got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore and started screaming, the nightmares stopped. It was weird, almost as if a warm fire were wrapping itself around me. I dreamt of fire the rest of the night, but not the hazardous kind, the type that warms your soul.  It was the first night since I got back from Tartarus  that I had no nightmares.

 

I woke up to discover the cure to my nightmares lying in bed with me. It shocked me so much that I almost screamed. I left my mouth hang open like an idiot for about two minutes before I shut it, mostly because I had swallowed some sort of insect. Big mistake. This caused me to start having a coughing fit, waking up my visitor. And who is that visitor you ask, well none other than the infamous Leo Valdez. 


	2. New Feelings & Iris Messages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico discovers some unlikely feelings for a certain person and gets an unexpected call from the Underworld.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the Latino sleeping in my bed. It gave me a confusing, light feeling inside of me. I think it's happiness, but I can't be sure since I haven't felt it for so long. But as I looked at his cut, impish features, the foreign feeling was confirmed. I had to stop myself from smiling. Where were all these thoughts coming from? I don't like Valdez, I couldn't, not after last time. It was better to keep my feelings hidden. The only person i got remotely close to was my half-sister, Hazel. What would she think of my growing crush if she knew? My trail of thoughts broke off with a coughing fit. Big mistake.

* * *

This coughing fit just had to wake up repair boy. I had picked up on his nickname too, but I would never let him know that. I was about to shadow travel out of my cabin, but I wasn't quick enough because Valdez saw me and went wide eyed. I silently cursed myself. "Where am I," he sleepily mumbled in ,I swear, the cutest morning voice ever. I almost let my smile slip at it, but I restored to my stony face. "Right, shit," he mumbled along with a string of Spanish, most likely swear words. " What the hell are you doing in my bunk?" Pretending to be mad at Valdez was actually really hard. His cheeks blushed at this question, and he looked down at the floor while answering. "Well you see i, um, heard you screaming in the middle of the night, I figured it was a nightmare." "Annabeth and Percy get them all the time too." "Well anyways, I came in here and,uh, c-cuddled you until you stopped screaming, I guess must've fallen asleep," he replied as if I was about to murder him. " My mom used to do it for me when I dreamt of Gaea." I immediately felt bad for being an asshole after that last remark. I was also blushing along with him after his explanation. The thought of Leo cuddling me did make me happy ,much to my demise. I looked back over see Valdez with his famous lop-sided grin. The fucker was actually smiling, it almost made me want to smile too. "This gets spoken of to no one, do you understand?" "Yes, ma'am," the grinning asshole replied. "Get out of my cabin, Valdez," I said before he could see the smile that was working it's way towards my lips. He gave me a two finger salute before turning towards the door. "And Valdez." "Yeah?" "Thanks." His grin widened at that before he walked out the door. 

* * *

 

I was just about to leave my cabin when an iris message popped up. It was my father, shockingly. "Nico, my son, I want you to visit me today in the underworld." I really don't want to go, but I couldn't let my dad down. He was the only parent, a bad one at that, I had left. "I'll be there, but what do you want me there for?" "I can't talk now, see you soon." Gee, thanks dad, I'm really feeling the love.

 

I threw on my usual attire, black skinny jeans and a black shirt, before shadow traveling to the Underworld. I had to get there soon. My dad wouldn't be proud of me if I was late. He got freaky about me being on time. 

 

When I arrived in the Underworld, I was greeted by an unpleasant sight. That would be my father and my bitch of a step mother. Persephone had always hated me , and believe me when I say the feeling is mutual.  As for my father, well he was probably the only person, well god that is, that scared me. "So," I nervously began,"what exactly am I here for again?" "We need you to watch Cerberus for the afternoon." I couldn't stand the mutt, and Persephone knew that judged off the slick smile on her face. "Persephone and I will be visiting Olympus for the day, so you will be watching him." Thanks for the choice, guys. "Here are some sunflowers to thank you for the task, Nico," Persephone said in a fake, seet voice as she handed me the flowers. That bitch. Long story short, Persephone turned me into a sunflower my last visit to the Underworld. I gave her a death glare ,and her smile only got bigger. I returned to my normal face, refusing to fuel her fire. "We will see you later,son." And with that last remark, Hades called the shadows, and they wrapped around Persephone and him, taking them to Olympus. I muttered a few cuss words before walking over to where Cerberus was kept. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This chapter was a pain in the ass to finish. I ended up having to rewrite it twice. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it!


	3. Watch Out For the Hellhound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico's hell hound sitting begins.

The giant mutt was in an even worse mood than normal today. Usually I would be greeted with a growl, but today I was greeted with a colossal paw to the face. That, of course, left a giant slash running from my eye to my chin. It was actually three slash marks, but who's counting? "Son of a bitch," I muttered under my breath. I swear that dog fucking grinned at me. Asshole. Yes, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my day, watching after the dog sent from hell, literally. 

As if just watching Cerberus wasn't enough, today was Wednesday, play day.  This is the day where Cerberus got to go to the Underworld hell hound park and play with the colossal dog toys. The only problem was Cerberus wasn't much of a dog toy hound, he'd much rather chew on some people. And who do you think the target was today? Yeah, me.  You know, you don't know fun until you've been tossed a hundred feet in the air and slammed back down by a mutant hell hound. Let me just tell you, it sucks. "Fuck," I muttered, my sides hurt like a bitch from that fall. Cerberus wasn't done yet. Next thing I knew, I was flying in the air again. But this time I only went about eighty feet in the air, how generous of him. 

I was getting up from my last fall when I felt a blinding pain shoot through my leg. The fucker bit me. Let me tell you something. Cerberus' teeth are coated in venom. His whole mouth is a great, big venom party. How fun. So him biting me in the leg of course caused me to freak out. Cerberus had never bit me before, no matter how nasty he got. This just confirmed all my suspicions. This whole babysitting the family hell hound thing was a test. I just  _loved_   my dad's tests. Let me explain. My dad was always testing me to see if I was worthy of his blood, almost always with deadly things. The last time I got a test from him, my sides were practically in ribbons. He had sent the furies that time. I thought the furies was the worst he would do to me, but apparently I was wrong. The only choice I had now was to walk away like a coward, I would die if I tried to fight. 

I shakily got up to my feet. I just started limping very slowly away when my father and Persephone arrived in front of me. Perfect timing. "So son, it looks like you have failed my test." I couldn't look at him, I was too ashamed. "You disappoint me." The one thing I tried my hardest not to do. "You don't deserve to have my blood." "Get out of my sight, you disgust me." I looked up at these last statements to see disgust on my father's face and pleasure on Persephone's. Her wish had been granted, I was leaving. I mustered up all of my power to shadow travel back to the camp. It was hard enough shadowtraveling, but to do it injured, well let's just hope I make it. 

 

It felt as if the shadows were smothering me, but I made it to the camp. There was no way I would be able to walk to get help. I started desperately crawling to get to the Big house, but black dots started to leap in my vision. Through the black dots, I thought I saw somebody running towards me. My vision was too blurry to see who it was.  Who was I kidding? They were probably running to meet up with a friend, not me. I mean, it was the middle of the night. Who cares about the life of the son of Hades anyways? 

 

I heard a Latino's voice scream, "Nico," and felt a strong pair of arms wrap themselves around my body before I passed out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I hope you enjoyed today's chapter. I probably won't be updating as much, because I have a pretty busy schedule coming up. I've got lots of concerts coming up and lots of drawings to make for the people who I hope to meet at those concerts. I also lots of summer reading to finish. Leave me some comments! i like hearing what you guys think. And if you guys want to find me on tumblr : http://athousandimaginarykingdoms.tumblr.com/


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